Could not get the kiss on his forehead onto my bloody iPhone until I stopped trying to shoot and said to myself, forget the picture, what's the problem, and the problem was the only Gareth in the right light was the one in the mirror and not the one in his own skin, so i made this picture of that mirror, and sure enough the kiss is cl...ear, a tattoo of affection for his birthday, planted in such a way that he becomes his own walking participle: people stare as he passes because he trails this lipstick on his crown, what king could he be? Of whose decorations?

A cake with Gareth is a feast of wit and width; how quick your thoughts, how broad your books? You eat multiple meanings, swallow possibilities and sip your ignorances like musty wines from faraway places: what you do not know might be a delicacy elsewhere, but the new taste on your brain is like the first licorice on your tongue. Puckered, you savor the new sensations: better than Hong Kong or Mumbai, you are in a bibliography with friends who wish to read you and catalogue your surprises and your surmising. The mind is freshened; I must think freshly!